


through the letterbox

by momokos



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkward Romance, M/M, im a coward and made spiderham into a human, spider noir is tired, theyre both nerds..... bc i say so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momokos/pseuds/momokos
Summary: Thinking on his feet, he shook the hand. “Peter.” He introduced himself.The other man rose an eyebrow, snorting slightly as it seemed like something dawned on him. He took a moment before answering.“You can call me Ham! Do me a favour and don’t ask, it’s an old nickname.” He grinned.(in which noir and ham are neighbours)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay, be warned. apart from random ass fics when i was 11 and a oneshot 3 years ago- this is my first fic in years. I'm not usually a writer but I went to go see spiderverse yesterday and got inspired! i'll try my best to update this on a regular basis if anyone likes it!
> 
> also- this will be so cliched. because after watching this movie all i craved was cheesy romance between spiderman rorschach and the pig. because of course.

Once again. For the 3rd week in a row, Peter got some weird mail through his letterbox. 

The letters, intermingled with regular old bills and junkmail, weren’t too weird at first glance. It was his name clear as day that they were addressed to. Even when Peter didn’t have his circular specs on his face he could make out his name with ease. 

Peter Parker. Mr P. Parker. Peter Benjamin Parker. 

That was his name. Though the first thing that tipped him to something being up was the select few letters that got his name wrong ever so slightly. 

His middle name was Benjamin. For his uncle. But on one dreary afternoon, returning from a rather tiresome day at work, he picked up the stack of papers by his feet as he entered through his front door. Sat down on his black leather suite, he flicked through them, his dark eyebrows furrowing- spotting something odd with the address on the envelope. Specifically, the name. 

Peter H. Parker. 

Now that was strange, but he chalked it up to an administration error. After all, ‘H’ and ‘B’ were awfully close on a keyboard. Skimming through the paper’s words, it seemed to be junk. So he leaned over, his hands shredding it into strips before letting go. The papers fell into the bin below, forgotten for now.

That is, until he got more strange mail as the days went on. More cases of them getting his middle name wrong, some were informing him of events he knew he certainly didn’t sign up for or had any prior knowledge of. 

He threw a letter for a dentist appointment at a practise he’d never even heard of into the bin as he sat down, not even bothering to read the full thing. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. He’d been doing overtime this full week trying to crack a case and he was really feeling it. Not that he’d stop working as hard as he had been or anything of the sort.

He didn’t do breaks. He wasn’t the type of person to take it easy in the middle of something just because he was feeling tired. He could rest when it was done. That’s how he’s operated his full life and there was no way in hell that was changing anytime soon.

He sank into his couch, dropping onto it heavily. It was late in on the night, and he only got home to his flat half an hour ago. In that half hour he’d; shed his work clothes (and his gorgeous black woolen overcoat that technically wasn’t part of the uniform but he’d sooner eat his hat before he’d go into work not wearing the thing. It was a comforting presence.) He’d went through the aforementioned and dreaded mail, brewed himself a fresh cup of tea (not his first choice of drink but he had to make do.) and got frustrated at his neighbour. 

He glared at the wall from where he was half sitting- half lying down. He hadn’t met whoever it was that was situated right next to him, all he knew was that they had moved in not too long ago and that they were annoying. And loud. 

He fully committed to lying down as he pulled a cushion over his face. God he was tired. Did his neighbour not get tired? He was rarely in the house during the day but he assumed the other must sleep through the day because all night he’d hear the loud yet muffled sounds through the thin walls. Sometimes he could make it out, the other watching tv super loud or blasting music. Sometimes it was just simple irritating white noise that he couldn’t put his finger on regarding what it actually was. 

There’d been a few nights where he was granted a reprieve from this fate but this didn’t seem to be one of those nights. As if he didn’t have enough trouble finding the embrace of sleep. Peter sighed, giving up and grabbing his remote, turning on the TV. Maybe he could just…. Drown it out partially. The show it turned on to was, well. It was a guilty pleasure of his. 

Spiderman. The fictional superhero. Truthfully, he was a bigger fan of the more serious spin offs and what not but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a part of him that still found an ounce of joy tuning in and watching the originals. The other half of the spinoffs were absolutely dreadful, though. (Who in this world saw something like spiderman and thought to themselves, ‘I want this! But I want this as a small swine. And I want it to be right on the edge of a copyright infringement from Warner Bros!’ Dreadful.) 

It was an episode he’d seen before, years back, but he still tuned into it for the next half hour before exhaustion won and he was lulled into sleep, the slightly cheesy sound effects of old cartoons combined with neighbour related ruckus and the sounds of the streets below made for some odd lullaby. 

Peter woke up the next morning with a crick in his neck. He rose up groggily and made for the bathroom, grabbing his displaced glasses on his way up. He really ought to make an effort to sleep in his bed for once. But when he came home in the evening it was just much more easy to pass out on the couch rather than trek into the next room over. Plus, every time he made the effort to sleep in his bed, he spent hours upon hours just laying there. His brain consumed with thoughts. 

Looking into the mirror, he frowned, running a hand through his grey head of hair. Blinking a few times, he stared at his reflection. Oh. 

He really was kind of starting to look pretty haggard. One of the young teens doing an apprenticeship at the daily bugle, Peni, had commented that he wasn’t looking too good the other day. He didn’t really acknowledge it then but looking into the mirror now, he could see where she was coming from. He let the tap run as he splashed some water on his face before replacing his glasses again.  
Some of the things couldn't be helped. He was past his prime and his hair went grey at the temples early on, gradually changing until it was at the point it was right now. That went hand in hand with the slight wrinkles marking his face. You couldn’t escape age, could you? 

But what was out of the ordinary was how pale he looked, his complexion resembling the porcelain he gripped onto now. The bags under his eyes were awful as well, to say the least. But most importantly. He looked tired. Yawning, he let go of his sink and stretched out. 

He brushed a comb through his silver locks before calling it quits. This was as about as good as he’d get, in regards to his appearance. He left the bathroom, picking up one of many dark suits he owned. Some may think it odd that his entire collection of clothing didn’t feature a single item that wasn’t black or at the very least grey. But he felt odd wearing such colourful things. He thought they were beautiful on others but on him… He thought it just looked strange. It wasn’t that he was a ‘goth’ as one of many coworkers once called him. It was just that.. This was what he was used to. Besides, stains weren’t much of a worry. 

He tightened his tie and shucked his overcoat on over his suit, grabbing his hat on his way out of the door. As he walked out into the close, he gazed over to his neighbours door. Even if he listened closely, he couldn’t make out a sound coming from within. Where the hell was this silence last night, huh? 

With one last annoyed look to the door, he huffed and turned. Making his way down the stairs as his coat flowed behind him. 

 

He got back into his apartment later that night once again, exhausted to all hell and back. He almost didn’t even bother picking up the single letter on the ground but worry that it was something important won out. 

It didn’t matter, he felt like screaming and shouting when he looked at it. 

Peter Porker.

With a little pig drawn on the other side of the envelope. 

What kind of weird joke was this? He didn’t even give the letter the satisfaction of being opened, he threw it onto his glass coffee table before doing what he did every night he got home, collapsing onto the couch. 

He hated it but he was being made to take the next day off. He knew he was close to being done with this current article, an investigation into some shady goings on in the centre of town, but when he came into work this morning his boss gave him a Look. Later on in the day he was pulled to the side, and it was strongly suggested that he take this saturday for some him time.

He hadn’t even bothered taking most of his clothes off, he was already drifting off into sleep. This was the earliest he’d dozed off in weeks, he thinks. The last thing that occurred to him before his eyes closed for good that night was that he couldn’t hear anything from next door. Mmmph. 

Morning. The morning light shone into his living room. He threw an arm over his eyes, trying to shield them from the rays. After a moment he shot up like a rocket, before remembering that he didn’t actually have to go in today. Well. He was up, no point in trying to catch more sleep at the moment. A shower felt like a nice idea to him.

And what a nice idea it turned out to be. He hummed as he entered the warm spray of water, feeling muscles he didn't even realize were tense begin to relax. He stood there for a good while, just simply enjoying the lovely feeling of being warmed up. Of course he showered often, but he usually didn’t get a chance to properly enjoy them. They were short and efficient, for the sole purpose of getting cleaned. 

As his hands and soles of his feet were starting to get all pruney he heard the door chap. He raised his eyebrows before realizing it was just the postman. He got back to rinsing his hair before a thought struck him. 

He could probably ask the postman what was going on with his mail.

His mind set, he swiftly exited the shower. He grabbed the first things he could that were easy to get into. A simple pair of black pants and an equally dark tee, a faded spider graphic on the centre. (He wasn’t one for t-shirts- but it was a gift years ago from a friend that found out he was into the series years back. And besides, it was in his colour. He wasn’t so sure he’d wear any of the.. Brighter designs.) 

He opened his door and rushed out, hopefully the postman was still nearby and hadn’t exited yet. It was in his rush that he uncharacteristically crashed into someone, gasping as he knocked him to the ground. He stopped and looked down, his eyes wide. 

The other man was shorter than him, by a good head or so it seemed. His hair was shaggy and brown and his nose was slightly upturned. In fact, he reminded Peter of the the greasy man he’d see every morning in the cafeteria at his work as he came in, shovelling fast food into his maw in the wee hours of the morning- just a shrunken down version. He looked a whole lot less greasy too. He looked down to spot a pudgy middle, nearly hidden by a soft pale pink hoodie, pushing against a…. Spider-man t-shirt. Well, that was a coincidence considering his own current attire. At the back of his mind, he acknowledged the other man as attractive. Though that was hardly an important thing to be thinking about right now, he should probably give the other man a hand. 

The other man, rose up from where he had been knocked down, shaking his head of brown hair and holding out his hand, probably wanting help up. Instinctively Peter reached out with his own, helping him up. 

“Hey.. Sorry about that-” Peter paused, looking down the stairwell trying to spot the bright red of the post office uniform. No luck. He looked back to the short chubby man. “I’ve been having some trouble with my mail and I was trying to sort it all out.” He explained, not wanting to seem like the sort to go about crashing into neighbours for no reason. 

“Aw hey! Don’t worry about it!” The stranger smiled, his teeth bright and blinding. He almost felt the corners of his own lips tug up in response. Almost. 

“I’ve been having some problems with it myself! Maybe we should have a word with the postal services, eh?” The short man laughed. 

“Maybe we oughta..” Peter agreed. He remembered that he was still holding this man’s hand and froze. Oh, that was probably not the best thing to be doing with someone you just met, was it. Thinking on his feet, he shook the hand. “Peter.” He introduced himself. 

The man rose an eyebrow, snorting slightly as it seemed like something dawned on him. He took a moment before answering. 

“You can call me Ham! Do me a favour and don’t ask, it’s an old nickname.” He grinned as he looked down, catching sight of Peter’s own t-shirt. “Oh hey! Nice taste! I’ve never really read a lot of the Noir comics, they’re not my personal thing- too much guns and killing and action, haha- but I’ve heard that they're good!” He exclaimed excitedly, before gently taking his hand away, tucking it into his hoodies pocket. 

What a sight the duo probably was to see. Peter with his hair and body still damp from the shower, in clothes that have never seen the outside world before. Ham with his modge podge of clothing that all clashed with each other, slightly scuffed up from his tumble down on the filthy hallway floor. 

“Yeah.” He simply agreed, taking a liking to this little excited man. It’d been a while since he’d interacted with people outside of his job so this was honestly pretty refreshing. “I used to be really into Spider-man stuff back in the day. Don’t have as much time nowadays to be reading it as much, so I’m pretty behind on what’s going on. I still.. Watch the shows every now and again though.” Peter stated, all the while Ham listened, engrossed in him, nodding along. 

Suddenly, the muffled sound of a phone ringing could be heard in the distance. Ham groaned and looked over. 

“Well- that’s my cue to go. But knock on my door anytime! I haven’t made any friends here since I moved in and I’d love to talk to you some more.” Ham winked before walking along to the door next to his, calling out as he opened his door. The door that he’d been directing glares at for the past few weeks.

“If you get any more weird mail- send it through my door please! How weird is it that two Peter Parker’s ended up living next to each other?” He laughed as the door clicked shut. 

Peter stood there for what seemed like an eternity. He spent his every day figuring stuff out and yet, he was left there in a bit of a daze. 

Two Peter Parkers?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ham gets Cozy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( A little shorter than the first chapter, sorry! But i'm so happy that people have read and enjoyed this! Thank you for all the kudos, comments and few bookmarks! <3 i feel extremely validated )

So far, this new apartment seemed pretty great! The rent was… well he could afford it and that was better than every other place he looked at. It wasn't in the nicest location and truthfully it was a rather small space but! It was his! 

Peter Parker, Or Ham if you’re on friendly terms, sat down on his floor, resting his head against the couch. Yes- He COULD sit on it like a normal person but where was the fun in that. Besides, Floor.. Comfy. On his way back into his flat, he had picked up his phone from where he had left it. Looking down to the screen as he swiped, he smiled fondly.

MAY - Answer?

“Petey? You there? You sure took your time answering me, boy! You had me worried for a tic!”

“Yeah yeah- I’m fine, May! Ya’ don’t have to worry about me now. “ He replied to her, then went on to assure her of her worried questions of if he was fine, if he was SURE that he settled in yet, if he was taking care of himself. He smiled, he had just seen her last week, when he had went back down to visit her, but he really missed the companionship of his adoptive parent. 

“Have you made any friends yet? You know I hate thinking about you all alone in that apartment, dear.” She asked him. This wasn’t the first time he’d been questioned about this. Geez- It had only been… nearly a month. Wasn’t his fault he was kinda freaked out by the guy downstairs. He was PROBABLY a crack dealer or something.. Like that? He gave off those energies. Illegal energies. Actually speaking of that- making friends with his neighbours, not drugs- he actually had an answer she’d probably approve of!

“Actually- Yeah I have! Or well, I’m on the way to, you know?”

“Well give me the details, Petey!”

“I actually met my next door neighbour today! We got some similar interests and all that.” He grinned, before deciding that he was gonna get Really Comfy. “Hold on a sec!” He called out, pressing loudspeaker and gently dropping his phone onto a cushion behind him. 

“Alright, back. Anyways yeah! Next door. I was kinda giving up on seeing him because I think he works all day.” He kicked off his scuffed shoes, kicking them into the corner, to be forgotten about until he needed them. (He had a shoe rack right there by his door, but it was homes to his shoes that barely got worn. The good shoes you could spot, because they were always just lying around somewhere. Usually in a pile.) 

Off went his hoodie as well. He rubbed his fingers over the soft yet worn down fleece of the thing. It was his favourite hoodie. Possibly ever? He was about to go on about his fellow Peter when he heard May shout. 

“Everything alright?” He asked, slightly worried.   
“Yeah of course dear! Just got to take care of something in the lab- I’ll speak to you later sweetie! Love you!” And with that she was off, the phone now silent. He shook his head in good nature. She was always up to something in that lab of hers. He was always so proud of how cool she was, doing science things and what not. Though sometimes he felt bad that he didn’t follow in her footsteps, instead following a career in the arts. Supporting himself on the side with his side job with probably wasn’t any better. 

(He felt weird saying that sometimes. That he did art school and was technically, yeah, an artist. He just drew funny little comics on the internet, saying that he was an Artist always made him feel like others would think he pumped out oil paintings or carved or something like… that.) 

 

Oh well. At least she had that Lady working with her now. It made him ecstatic to hear how excited she would get, talking about her new co-worker. 

He looked down to his attire, thinking about changing out of his jeans. It was early on in the day but was he really gonna go back out? He made an early morning trip out already so maybe he Did deserve his PJ pants right now. He huffed. He’d keep his t-shirt on for now though, that can stay. It doesn’t fit him like it used to, clinging a bit more tightly than when he got it a couple of years back and riding up when he stretched out- but it was one of his favourites and it would have to be reduced to a rag held together with roughly 2 stitches before he thought about binning it. 

Coming to a decision, he unbuttoned his denims, sighing in relief as his legs were free as he awkwardly pulled them off and flung them in roughly the same direction as the discarded shoes as he rose up from seat on the cheap carpeted floor, making for the pile of clothes in his bedroom. He grabbed the jammie pants he’d took off a few hours earlier and stepped into them. They were a bit silly and childish, but hey, so was he! 

Besides, if you were him, that fateful day out shopping, you’d be lying if you said you too wouldn’t have picked up a soft baggy pyjama set patterned with Kermit and Miss Piggy. 

Best purchase ever.

As soon as he had the pants over his butt, he flopped down onto his bed. He sighed contently, he loved this bed. So soft; he’d covered it in all the blankets and cushions he could get because why would he not? He snuggled in and covered himself up. Sure- it may have only been noon-ish, but his sleeping habits were beyond saving. 

He thought about Peter. He really liked him from the few scant moments they spent together. There was just something… real cool about him. Even though he seemed like a bit of a mess at that moment with his damp clothes and soggy hair, he still radiated cool energies. The way he carried himself just shouted “I am cool! I don’t mean to be and probably don’t realise it but I am!”

He liked him. 

There was also the fact that they just straight up shared the same exact name. He kept thinking about that. The landlords renting these flats out must be having a hell of a chuckle to himself about this whole situation. 

A thought occurred to him as he drifted off, ready to sleep and waste the entire day away. 

It was a good thing he at least had a nickname. At least things won’t get too confusing if things turn out right and he makes a friend out of his elusive neighbour.

**Author's Note:**

> (Spiderham is called Peter Hamish Parker because A) I think I'm funny B) It's my au and i'll make weird choices if I wanna! 
> 
> Sorry for the rusty writing that's probably filled with mistakes, this was just for fun! But I hope at least somebody gets some enjoyment out of this!
> 
> i'm on tumblr and twitter @metaknighto! please shout about spideymen with me! )


End file.
